Thursday, May 09, 2013

Do Americans overparent?

Let me start this by saying that I do not have children, nor will I anytime soon. With that understood, I'll share some of the complaints I have about present-day American parents, who generally seem to baby, spoil and coddle their children to the point of harm.

Last year, The New York Times had a good piece about why French parents are superior to their American counterparts, with the basic reason being that French parents don't devote every waking minute to their offspring. French parents gleefully partake in grownup time and force the French children to entertain themselves, the story says.

In many American households, when family and friends come over to visit, the youngsters are the center of attention. Grownups still carry on adult conversations — that is, until one of the kids wants a snack or wants to watch "Tangled" for the 400th time, then the discussion is paused until that tyke gets what he or she has requested.

Of course, this is a generalization, and some American parents don't hesitate to say "no" or "wait." But based on my observations of parent-child behavior at restaurants, parks, stores and social gatherings, it seems most modern moms and dads are at their child's every beck and call.

The trend of constantly catering to your child's every little need holds American parents to unrealistic standards, especially working mothers.

A story in today's Tribune shows that Millennial moms feel more pressure than the generation of moms that came before them.

"More than 70 percent of millennial moms said the majority of their free time is taken up by their kids' activities, compared with 47 percent of baby boomer moms, according to the DDB Life Style Study, taken every year since 1975. ...

According to the poll, 'helicopter parent' might better describe millennials than baby boomers... Only 39 percent of millennials said they usually let their kids resolve problems at school or with friends on their own, compared with 61 percent of baby boomers."

As the story goes on to say, American parents have tried to make life increasingly easier for their children. At face value, that seems like superb, selfless parenting. But the concern is that parents become way too exhausted and children too reliant.

As a childless 20-something, my biggest gripe about super-parenting is that it makes parenthood seem like more trouble than it's worth. Of course, any parent will tell you this isn't the case... that being a mom or a dad is the best role they will ever serve, blah, blah, blah. But for young adults, especially young women, it's hard to see how having children is not an extreme setback for those who aspire to climb the career ladder or simply maintain personal lives.

What do you think? Are today's parents, especially moms, held to impossible standards?

Comments

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Speaking as the parent of 2 small children...I know very few parents of pre-school aged children that are not both employed. Not talking single moms here - I'm talking nuclear family where mom and dad both work. In the past, I think it was much more doable to have mom stay home and dad work. But now - what 20/30 something can get a job that pays enough to support a small family? So you have mom working too and then the guilt spiral starts - my mom stayed home with me...am I doing enough quality time? Is someone else raising my kid for me?

I think a lot of the pressure to live up to "impossible standards", as you say, comes from within.

I'm a working mom of an almost 2-year old, and it's true that pretty much all of my non-working time is spent on my son. This is not because I feel like I have to, it's because I want to. This is hard for non-parents to understand (I know that sounds so snotty), but I think my kid is the coolest thing happening right now, and that's where I want to be when I'm not working.

I know some stay-at-home moms, and they are so excited for the weekend to come so they can get a babysitter and go out. I'm so excited for the weekend because I can finally spend some real time with my son. Does that mean my social life suffers? Of course. But I'm OK with it.

I sort of scoff at the notion that French parents are inherently "better" than American parents, although I certainly agree with the idea that too much parenting is a bad thing. However, you certainly can't deny that parents who do everything for their children are setting those children up for failure later. My wife and I try to reach a happy medium with our 5-yr-old, though I'm probably more callous than she is. (Go on, son, open that bag of popcorn yourself!)

I remember being at the playground in Welles Park last summer, and the slide was a little hot in the sunshine. What did a mom there do? She poured water on the slide, turning it from too hot into a super-slide that could launch kids 10 feet in the air. Overparenting gone awry!

If I had to point to a cause of this, I am going to blame TV/movies/the media, who have turned motherhood into a contest, not unlike everything else - parties, weddings, etc.

Seriously, Jessica, speaking as a parent, I'd say we do feel a lot of pressure to set them up for success and give them every advantage, because things are a whole lot more competitive now than when we were growing up. Success, I think, will be harder to come by in their world, and so we give them a lot of experiences we didn't have, travel with them a lot, go to their games and recitals, and so on, a lot more than our parents ever did for us. I wouldn't say I feel guilty about any of it, and being involved and having a relationship with them has been good. I also don't expect persons without children to understand, and I figure as long as I'm getting my work done and not having others cover for me, then why really should anyone care.

Yeah that parenting style seems to turn the French into rather rude cold adults not known for their loyalty to spouses. A stereotype? Perhaps. But no more so than the idea that he French have superior children.

Speaking as a parent of two kids (14 and 12), I must question why a childless 20-something feels she is entitled to "complaints" and "gripes" -- not to mention facile generalizations -- about other people's parenting styles. Seriously Jessica: What's it to ya?

Seems to me that there is a steady stream of stories out there about kids who are abandoned, abused and otherwise woefully under-parented. Perhaps there is a pandemic of over-parenting among the more privileged, but I really don't see it in my part of the world.

JESSICA REPLY: Let me first use the adage, "Everyone is entitled to their opinion," and then remind you that everyone was childless at some point. I'm sure you had opinions on parenting styles before you became a parent. I have opinions on plenty of things that don't directly concern me, as do most people.

And of course the overparenters of the world are one extreme, and unquestionably better than the other, but my point was to convey the added weight on the shoulders of today's parents, not to criticize them for trying to meet those expectations.

What find hardest is how to deal with things that are actually dangerous. There is a lot to be said for giving your kids room/encouragement to stretch their abilities and fail a few times while learning. That doesn't work for learning to cross the street, though.

@A Reader. No. If you waited until you didn't think it was disgusting you'd never have kids. When you take the plunge and have them you find yourself able to do all kinds of things you never would have been willing to do before.

You are not a parent until you have been:
puked, pooped or peed on.
Wait until you try to get puked up milk out of your defroster vents in car.
OK, I justed dated myself, people don't have kid seats in the front anymore.

I'm not a parent, but many of my friends, neighbors, and relatives are. It seems to me that the anxiety many people in their 20s and 30s feel regarding parenting has to do with the social and emotional aspects of raising children. (Will I be able to have a life? Will my career suffer? Will my relationship with my spouse suffer? Am I mature enough to guide a young person through infancy, childhood, and adolescence when I still feel like I'm figuring things out for myself?) And while those are all valid concerns, I also think young people (or at least the young people I know) tend to discount the *physical* challenge of raising children - challenges that will only become more daunting as the prospective parents age.

Edge. The physical stuff doesn't last long. When my teen daughters come to haul stuff out of my car or pick up the luggage off the carousel when we are at the airport, its clear that it is actually physically an advantage to have had them!

I began my CPS teaching career in an extremely high poverty school where many of the children were either neglected or abused. They had severe emotional problems including violent behavior, depression, and anxiety. I cried in my car on the drive home every single day.

Ten years later I am teaching in one of the CPS "crown jewel" test-in schools. WHAT A DIFFERENCE. The parents are exactly the type of overachievers you mention in your post - they all want to come on every field trip, they e-mail me frequently to haggle over grades and due dates, and they complain about trivial things like whether their child should be allowed to use a pen instead of a pencil, or that the child's backpack was too heavy that night, and couldn't I be more careful when assigning homework so that they didn't have to carry so many books. The list of their little complaints goes on and on and on...and I'LL TAKE IT. The kids are happy and healthy, and they go on to be healthy, happy high schoolers and college students.

Complaining about overparenting is easily done, until you've seen the extreme opposite.

"Also until you have said, "You are throwing up? Come sleep in my bed.""

Yeah, I can't imagine this ever, ever happening for me. I've had an intense phobia about such things since a childhood trauma involving my well-intentioned Dad thinking it would be hilarious to show me the restaurant scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. I mentioned this to my girlfriend the other day. She didn't seem to take it quite as seriously as I might have hoped.

At a parent seminar I lead at my daughter's daycare, I start by asking what do we mean when we say that someone is a "good person". I get answers like that they stand up for what is right, they're courageous, they're caring, helpful, kind, etc. Then I ask what do we mean when we say that a child is a "good boy" or a "good girl". After a bit of an awkward silence, people admit that that means "obedient" and "quiet". Which is how we raise them - as somewhat less than full human things to be paraded out for things we're proud about (their grades, their piano-playing ability, etc.) and then shunted aside so the real people - the grown-ups can talk.

For some reason, raising one's children from day one as the full and equal human beings we want them to grow up to be draws an awful lot of suspicion and downright hostility.

"As a childless 20-something, my biggest gripe about super-parenting is that it makes parenthood seem like more trouble than it's worth. Of course, any parent will tell you this isn't the case... that being a mom or a dad is the best role they will ever serve, blah, blah, blah." So don't be a "super-parent" if you become a parent -- parent in a way that works for you. You get to choose how you raise your kids. Of course, since you said that all you hear when you listen to parents talk about parenting is "blah, blah, blah," you won't remember this, but maybe other readers here will benefit.

As a parent, I want to give my child the world. Knowing that, I have to teach him to be able to take care of himself, and coddling or doing every single thing for him is helpful to no one. Liberal doses of love, kisses, structure and Free Range Parenting are how we are doing it so far. I'm lucky to have a spouse who has the same parenting philosophy and is also very hands on (or hands off) when necessary. You can't care what everyone in the world thinks - only what works for you and your family.

I just want to add that there is probably some perfect balance between parenting and over-parenting. Good luck Jessica if you think that you have the answer to finding that sweet spot. Probably MOST parents vary in between those boundaries from day to day. It's a learning process. On the job training in the extreme! There is no one-size-fits-all child or parenting mode. Every single kid, especially siblings are different. What worked for one kid won't work for the next. Most parents are doing the best they can given their abilities on most days. Cut us some slack!

I do not want to go back to the days where Dads were basically not involved with their kids other than to throw a ball in the back yard to the boys.

I am on my way to doing a two hour volunteer lunch duty at school. I love that I can see what hot lunch is really made of and see how my oldest behaves with the other kids. I don't call that over-parenting. I call that be involved.

We don't have the social life we used to before having kids. I don't miss it for a second.

So as someone who is probably going to have to take a hard look at the "Am I a person who should have kids" question in the near-ish future, maybe I can ask for some perspectives?

My big fear is having nothing in my life except work and kids. I've always been a very curious person with multiple interests. hobbies, etc. Some of which, like music, require at least the occasional evening/nighttime commitment. It terrifies me to lose all of that. Yes, I am aware that for many people it is replaced by the benefits of parenthood, but I have no innate sense of those benefits before the fact. I have no idea whether they'd be, for me, greater than the loss of everything except work and kids in my life.

Some might say more of a balance is possible, but - and I emphasize that I'm not making a misogynist generalization here but merely reporting my observation - literally every one of my male friends with kids, who has some significant interest/pastime in his life outside of work and kids, has a wife who is resentful of that interest/pastime, which makes life difficult. I have no indication that my girlfriend would become that way, but I also know that having kids changes everything

I've had previous girlfriends imply that even entertaining these questions as seriously as I am reveals a selfish perspective, and if I'm not unreservedly enthusiastic about it, that answers the question right there. I don't think it's that simple, but maybe that's just innate selfishness talking.

@Jessica: "American parents have tried to make life increasingly easier for their children."

My two oldest kids made life hell for me for six years, so to make life easier for myself, I threw them into the Army after they graduated from high school. A taste of mortar fire tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully.

You aren't seriously suggesting we treat humans who crap themselves several times a day, refuse to put shoes on when it's time to leave the house (See CK, Louis circa 2007) and eat food off the sidewalk as fully functioning human beings, are you?

RJM - depending on how gracefully (or not) you age, you may some day find yourself as someone who craps himself, refuses to put shoes on and eats food off the sidewalk. If that happens, will you not a full human being (note: you added the word "functioning")?

@Dienne - Accepting, for the sake of discussion, the answers you get as being representative of those people would give in general, I think there may be some hidden assumptions. For example, there probably is are implicit assumptions when you ask about a "good person" (probably understood to mean an adult) that the person generally does not scream in routine everyday situations, does not generally hit other people, doesn't climb on the furniture in the middle of a business meeting, eats most food with silverware instead of hands, drives on the approved side of the road, etc. Those who don't meet these expectations generally would either be understood to have some sort of unusual condition or not be considered "good" if they were capable of complying with expected behavior but refused to do so for no good reason (what is a "good" reason obviously being subject to the observer's opinion). For most of the adult population, the baseline behaviors are in place and true variability that allows someone to distinguish him/herself as "good" is in factors like the ones you discuss.

For children, these baseline behaviors are not necessarily assumed so someone asked the question might very well think of them in considering what is meant by a "good boy" or "good girl."

What do you mean when you say that someone speaks well? What do you mean when you say that a toddler speaks well?

I do agree with much of your point, though. Children are entitled to respect, autonomy, and the right to express themselves -- all in ways that move towards adult standards as they gain maturity. I don't at all buy the "children should be seen and not heard" model. The "shunting aside" you see may often be a recognition of the fact that no one -- child or adult -- can be expect to speak at will (especially in the middle of someone else's sentence) in a discussion. When adults do it routinely, we probably tend not to interact with them again. When children do it, we don't tend to hold it against them in the same way. We get that they don't yet have the skills to do what we expect of adults. They should not be shunned but they should be redirected -- which sometimes means suggesting that they go play with the other children present.

I don't see anything particularly wrong with saying (in effect), either, "The adults are talking about the Boston bombing in a way that will give you nightmares so please go play with the other kids" or "I don't mind if you participate in this conversation if you really want to do so but it is going to involve things you don't understand and I am not going to break the flow of the conversation to explain them to you in real time so you may be happier playing with the other kids. As always, I will teach you over time so that someday you will be able to follow this sort of conversation."

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.